Todd and I headed down Saturday and set up camp at the Berryman Campground. We were joined by Jim Seymour and Brett Murch and enjoyed some beers and a delightfully delicious barbacoa tacos prepared by Todd. It rained most of the night but we still we able to stand around the fire enjoying the evening. Pretty late getting going the next morning but the temps were still in the 40's when we hit the trail. Jim was doing Berryman recon for the 50 mile race and headed off about 10 minutes before us. Todd and I headed out clockwise at a nice easy but quick clip averaging around 8:25 pace. Todd carried a camel back and several gels. I packed two .5L bottles with LMNT in my janji fanny pack along with 2 gels and 2 packs of stinger gummies.
We expected slow going because of the rain but overall it was good trail conditions with a few areas of deep mud and running water down the trail. We caught and passed Jim at mile 6 and enjoyed some quick fist bumps. Todd had to stop for several bathroom breaks but was easily able to catch back up as I slowed the pace down to 10:00/mile and dropped it back down once he made it back. The sun came out and the woods were quite nice. We run into a couple of SLUG volunteers checking on the trail but overall there weren't many downed trees for them to remove. Around mile 16 we caught Brett Murch riding his mountain bike. He let us pass and kept us company for about 2 miles. Around mile 20 things were starting to get a little rough. We were still able to keep 8:30 pace but my legs got tired and my lack of water (which I had finished at mile 18) started causing me some muscle pain. The last two miles were a struggle. We made it out and ran across the parking lot to our original starting point. Overall great training day and awesome night of camping with the Wildcats!